


By My Hands

by JackieSnax



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 12:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10808688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackieSnax/pseuds/JackieSnax
Summary: Ruth had a firm, solid idea about her identity. Circle Mage creeping towards forty. Matronly by age twenty and something beyond that now, but smart, and honest. Composed, even, in a plain sort of way - happy so long as she had something to occupy her spare time. Seamstress or teaching duties, a good book, her faith, if she could ever spark that into distracting her again. First and foremost, however - she was a circle mage. No matter what some 'vote' said.She's still that when she meets him, even though she can't be - doesn't even know how much she can't be, yet. It's alright, though. He's still sort of something else, too.AN: I wanted to write a pro-circle mage slowly going pro-mage-freedom and I wanted to write a dynamic and strife-spiced Cullen/Inquisitor fic. Here we are.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I always hated how Inquisition didn't keep up with the DA tradition of origin stories. Like, yeah, they added jumping, but think about what they took - origin stories and dogs. Who would do that?
> 
> Anyway, yeah - this chapter should be considered Inquisitor Ruth Trevelyan's origin story. We'll get into the meat and the folks you wanna greet next chapter.

Ruth Trevelyan liked her hands. She did not like the appendages attached to her often, but she valued her hands - they had purpose, both in the knobby bones of the joints and the vessels beneath, down again to the further veins of magic that murmured sparks down her fingers like they were falling asleep, falling into the fade, fade-ing away.

They had clean, clipped nails. And picked clean cuticles besides, tiny scars from an errant needle or a worried hand. They were bony, but solid, like her. Her pallid skin was translucent on the truth of them in a way she could appreciate - the bones were there, the skin above potched from freckles and scars, the lightest whisper of hair over knuckles -

Ruth was the Ostwick circle seamstress. Ruth had a lot of time to stare at her hands. And time must equal love, in a way, for while they were quite as plain as the rest of her, she loved them fine. Function equaled love, too. No function in bushy ginger brows and hair paired with broad shoulders that have already grown a little hunched from age, at only thirty eight - and a deep scar down her cheek that maybe she could’ve loved, if not for the poison behind that old knife, that poison that kept her away, far away, _away,_ **_away._**

_Knock four times._

Ruth’s hands were how her day began, an errant soul bobbing into wakefulness with these knobby tools at her disposal, floating before her with various implements of morning - water cupped, brush struck through with years of frustrated force, hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail - functional, functional. She wore plain robes normally, stepping as far into color as moss green, always feeling like being a ginger was more than enough in the poison-bright direction without adding anything else that might _contrast_ , good maker.

Today, though, she was different. _She_ was entirely different, in fact. A different entity than _Ruth_ , because _Ruth_ was at the circle, like always.

The sun was just beginning to wash up the mountain, trees shivering with the fresh wind off the creek and birds crying out softly, waking, rising. Crickets, fading. All the world in balance, yes, that was _some good shit right there_.

Ruth was not at the circle. It was _terrifying_. And oh, it was so, so lovely.

“Ey, Ruthie, you finished that repair yet?” The words rose muffled from the pile of blankets off on the other side of the tent. Ruth ignored them. Mist was rising out of the ground in wavering blurs. She could see a frog hopping along the creek they’d camped next to for the night, one half-day’s walk yet to the conclave.

“Eh, Ruthie!” a pillow struck her in the back of the head. “Pants!”

Ruth inhaled slowly. Then, rolling off to the side in a way that made her hips crack (which in turn made the last remnants of Younger Ruth cringe from wherever she was living in Ruth’s gut), Ruth exhaled in a freezing, snowy burst, the moisture in the air _crystallizing_ -

Into the finest, softest particles of snow possible. The partially exposed form in the blankets shrieked, ducking below, and Ruth barked out a laugh, chucking the pillow back, “This is what your Ruthie gives you, Liam, this is what you’ll get for that.”

The blankets shifted, giggling, until a sandy brown mess of hair popped out the side, the face beneath smirking, “Ruthie! I have to know! My proposal -”

“Yes, yes, I know-”

“- is tonight and I need everything to be-”

“- it will all go perfect, pup.”

“The pants?”

Ruth raised her eyebrows, “Have I ever wronged you?”

“Nooo! Ruthie, I’m not saying I don’t-”

“If I tell you ‘they’ll be done by tonight’ you’ll believe me, then, yes?”

Liam blinked, and contained something. “Yes.”

Ruth snatched his repaired pants from where they rested beside her bag and tossed them to Liam, who shrieked and leapt up, immediately tugging them on with a childish exuberance he probably should’ve already grown out of - he was eight now, and at the edge of her class as it was, almost ready to move up anyway - move beyond simple healing and repairs. Having acquired the breadth of her skills, they all moved on in their lives to gain more.

(But not Liam. Not yet.)

He required help with his jacket and shoulder pauldrons, the whole damn outfit was going on of _course_ , he insisted on being Prepared and she couldn’t quite fault that. He still required some gentle correction on hair maintenance, but Liam mostly got ready himself. Then, they were out of their tent, Mags already awake and hard at work of course, setting up their breakfast for the day. “Morning,” Ruth called to her, dropping down by her side and stealing a strip of bacon, narrowly avoiding the slap on the hand it earned her.

“Don’t you touch that yet!” Mags snapped. Liam zipped back around her from where he’d been trying to do the same and sat down with Ruth between him and Mags with an exaggerated shudder. Ruth barely contained an eye-roll. Mags was technically Liam’s keeper - she was a Templar instead of a mage, and had retired from more active duty to wrangle little magelets last year when she turned forty, which was apparently scary-old for a Templar. She raised her stock with a strict hand. She was Ser and they were children, and that was that. It instilled confidence in them - they clung to her skirts every time there was danger and came to her with their troubles and injuries, for sure - but Ruth, being of (Mags might say) _painfully_ relaxed nature, and newer at this job, and not in charge of most punishments to boot - was sometimes clung to just to make a point to Mags.

“Is it ready yet, Ser?” Liam said after a few seconds. Mags didn’t dignify this with an answer, so Liam started reciting his speech again, unperturbed. As always, she found herself relieved to hear the memorized words yet again - that had taken effort, and she’d had to make flashcards. Still, he’d worked hard for an eight year old, and his voice, she knew, was strong and clear now as it would be later, before the crowd. Liam might not be the most mature, but he had confidence in spades. Much as she loved him, this journey had been tiring, to say the least. She missed the rest of her class, even though having all of them on this journey would’ve been, well, _not something she’d ever want to attempt_. And it was difficult to nudge the creeping dread that it was probably a pointless journey, too.

Ostwick Circle had only partially rebelled, in the end - but even a partial rebellion counted for something, and what remained of the circle was now down to eleven mages and two templars. They had decided on a child paired with an older Templar woman as their delegation to the conclave out of desperation more than anything else - we’re just a quiet circle! Just a child and two plain old broads, don’t hurt us! Ruth was just there to help Mags _deal_ with Liam and to fix any last minute sewing emergencies. Mags was there to represent and defend them - to show that Templars still held control in Ostwick, that they were safe, that they were not the enemy, (please, please don’t hurt us, because we here are _not! the! enemy!)._

There were four other children left in her class, all back at the remnants of Ostwick. There were four other mages - co-workers, ex classmates, friends, though they hadn’t been friends before all this, really - and another Templar besides. Clive - an elderly man that had been the first to stand between them and the Other Templars, the ones that had cracked under the pressure of it all and hatched into something _other_ than what they’d been known as. Men and women she’d known her whole life, who in desperation and fear slowly dragged them all to the brink of too far.

In the end, after two horror-filled weeks culminating with one Terrible Day, there remained Them - the last few. All others fled, or were buried, either in the rubble of the worst of it, the dining hall, where they didn’t go anymore (it would’ve been too big anyway) or lovingly in the walled garden out back. Ruth herself had helped bury three dear friends, including an ex-student of hers. And in the end, Them - holed up in the library and the elders’ dorms, the only places to survive relatively intact. Ostwick partially to rubble, her beautiful home torn open, but even worse - cut-off from the rest of the world. They were suddenly Not, Not Circle, Not Legal, Not Safe. Because far away from all of this, one vote had made them apostates, and that was that.

 _Apostate._ Ruth had been an apostate before. She didn’t plan much anymore, but to be sure, she had planned to keep a _healthy_ distance between her and _that_ life. Between all of them and that life.

So they’d sent a missive first, Mags penning an impassioned assurance that they had not fallen, at least not completely, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d gathered and decided what to do.

Liam had won the essay contest she and Mags had arranged for their remaining five students. He was to speak simply about the overall goal being peace, gently nudging Ostwick’s survival as a circle city into the light, maybe finish with a request for more supplies on the end if it’s looking bright, you know, you know. Then Mags was to come in - a gentle, reassuring force after Liam’s meek lil mage plea, there to reiterate what he’d said from a Templar perspective. There to guide Liam off stage after - show the world her strong hand on his shoulder. Protecting him, keeping him safe, still. A good Templar and a good Mage.

That was the goal.

It took them the morning to reach the conclave. The sun rose all the way, and the air was fresh with a rain in the night, washed through and smelling like greens and dusty books and stones and something deeper and warmer she could not name. Liam ran on ahead, dizzyingly excited. Mags griped at him, and then griped at Ruth about him when he wouldn’t listen. Ruth nodded and made sympathetic noises. The sun felt like divinity on her face, and she shut her eyes and stepped carefully for a moment, looking into the red glow of her lids and waiting. Sometimes she swore she could see Andraste in the burn, that tattoo the sun leaves on retina. She couldn't reach her today, though.

They reached the conclave warm and happy, and in need of repairs, as Ruth had predicted. They set up camp in a far corner behind a garden shed, a lucky spot, and Ruth got to work sewing up Liam’s pants, which he had ripped, of course, resulting in a fit of _hysteria_ that still had her ears ringing and poor Mags snapping at the poor kid far more often than usual. They ate a quiet lunch, and then Mags asked Liam to say his speech again, and he was off, positively vibrating with excitement. Even as they gathered what they would need and did a last wardrobe check he was mumbling it under his breath, and as Ruth wrapped a threadbare shawl around her shoulders - she didn’t have to look _nice_ like they did, praise Andraste - she wondered what he would be like after, when the speech was done and the excitement of the last few weeks over and he had to go back to schooling and living a contained life. She hoped, desperately, that he would be fine with that, but something about him already seemed Too Big in a way that she’d seen hurt her kids, later. Her students all grew up and some simply grew Too Big. And then -

She shut that thought off, _down, **no.**_ _Knock four times._

They wandered. They listened to arguments, speeches. Liam alternated between fretting over his appearance and gazing on in wonder - a fortune teller, decked out in Dalish tattoos and seashell jewelry. An apostate dragging lightning between their fingers like spiderweb, his eyes bright and feverish in the static light. A fight - an explosion of sound and then two smacks, the second one wet, and a bloody nose - Mags turned him sharply away at that, and he craned to see over her shoulder. It occurred to Ruth that this was all new to him. She herself had spent some time outside the circle - at first, legally, as a simple Child, instead of a Mage Child, which was different. And then, later, as an apostate, for that brief, fever bright time. But Liam had been plucked from some unknown home when he was barely three. She could still remember his little halo of golden curls peeking over Mags’ shoulder in the first few days after he’d arrived - he’d screamed every time she put him down, so she’d worn him like a pack on her back for a few days, until he was comfortable enough to trot around and look at his tiny world.

And then his world had remained exactly that small. No wonder he was so in-awe. Ruth was in-awe, and she’d Lived. Liam had basically just started to see the world for what it was.

He was in front of her when it happened.

Her hand - so sure and safe, memorized - came to rest on his shoulder as the bells began to chime for them to gather - the conclave was beginning, and Liam would be one of the first to present, today, as an interim as they gathered for lunch. Despite his brave face, he jumped a bit when she touched him. She gave his shoulder a squeeze - a gentle assurance.

The first speaker began, his voice booming and passionate. Something-something order being the goal, blah blah stop the violence, boos and cheers and shouts peppered all the way through. It was all too big for her to worry about - what she _could_ worry about, what she could _do_ , was straighten Liam’s collar. He glanced back at her, opened his mouth, and then looked forward again.

“What?”

“Huh?” He said evasively, looking away.

“Don’t give me that. What is it?”

“Nothing!” He said, and she dropped it. But every now and then she saw him looking up at her, out of the corner of her eye, but he looked away when she tried to catch him at it - he wanted to ask her something, clearly. She could practically feel the question bursting at his seams. She decided to wait. It’d come out soon enough, surely before he spoke, whenever he was ready-

There was a sucking lack of sound.

That first.

Then the light, popping and then exploding outwards, burning her vision white, burning her hand, extended, _where is he_ \- the world is pain and bright, and -

_Darkness._

It lasts only a moment.

Then there's chaos. Light, green light dancing everywhere, and screams, and someone  _falls_ past her with a bellow so quick and an ending so fast it barely registers - just a smack - and there's running, and Ruth is bleeding, she can see it in her eyes but can't  _feel_ it, she brushes back her hair and her hand comes away red.

She is below. She was above, and now she is  _below._ A floor below - the pillar they were standing besides protected her from falling  _farther,_ supporting the floor beneath it, to a degree. Ruth rested on that degree now.

_He was in front of her._

She flung herself to her feet, stumbled, grabbed the pillar for stability and breathed. She looked down into the dungeon level floor. She could see it, and see something else, the shadowed, uncanny sprawl of unmoving forms. Green light shimmered like fluid sheets of poison in the air. 

There could be no question of what she did next.

Ignoring the panicked screams and trampling above, Ruth picked her way _down_ , pausing only the wipe the blood from her brow.


	2. Chapter 2

When she wakes, there are spiders.

No…

When she wakes, there are two women and a small room and Liam isn’t there. Mags isn’t there. Liam - _Liam._ Liam isn’t there.

Liam, cautious eyes peeking over at her, her hand solid on his shoulder, and then...

The women are angry. They are hard thorns of rage and pain and Ruth finds she doesn’t care. That she has rage and she has pain, so she could be a thorn too, maybe. She is empty of all else. She is a vacant house, windows and doors all blown open, and a blizzard rocking through that shell. Even her hands are unfamiliar, too far away… and one, glowing, sparking, hurting. It distracts her for a minute, and then there’s a smack, and then -

Finally, one thing penetrates the fog.

They’re all dead.

Mags - she hadn’t even looked for Mags, with her worn out smile and her strong hands. Because Liam-

Liam.

They’re all dead. _“All those people…”_

She is jerked upwards, dragged outside. 

The sky is a boiling tear of light, green light, that same sickly green light as before, but everywhere. It rolls amongst the clouds like an undulating storm, and as it breaks and fractures, something seems to snap, some deeper bone she’s never felt before, breaking in her hand, tearing it open, and she collapses, clutching it to her chest, but it burns before her, green and -

_“I’ll do what I can.”_

They are running, and her hand is a tether of pain. They are attacked, and -

_“I don’t need a staff to fight, you know.”_

Cassandra is strong - she has scars on her face she doesn’t try to hide with makeup, despite her kohl rimmed eyes, which Ruth can appreciate. She, too, doesn’t hide the scar that runs the slope of her cheek, potched and ugly and full of a promise to survive. And Cassandra believes Ruth, too, lets her keep her staff.

So when it comes time to make a choice, she says, “Charge with the soldiers.” Because she wants to move, and because Leliana, despite her seeming softness, has not revealed herself yet in the way Cassandra has, bloody and plain and raw with grief. Raw, like Ruth is raw, and she is not alone.

They move, and when they face danger, Ruth is blown away by the force of the magic that pours from her. She freezes enemies in their path, skirts the battleground like a wraith, finds power in that frozen spark of rage, still deep beneath the shock, the fuzzy unrealness of what’s happening right now. She knows, though, that she could not do that before… all of this. She sewed, and she healed, and ice always came easily to her, particles freezing in the air, snow like soft down for her to shape in the world. She used to be the favorite helper for making fortresses in the back garden. But this - no, never. They would've made her tranquil for  _this._

Closing rifts feels like vomiting in reverse, through her hand. Ugly and dirty feeling, painful in a wrenching way. Her wrist aches, her fingers strain under the pressure, but she holds them out, leans into pain because it’s something, because at least there’s a job to do.

And then, he is there. Hugely important, but she can’t see that yet, not even a little.

They meet that first day on the mountain and she is stinking of panicked sweat and blood, so overdone with grief the air goes frigid around her. She sees him step into her space and then step back. She sees him tilt his shield downwards, sees the way his eyes sharpen, and thinks ‘templar,’ and wonders what he thinks of her. And that’s the end, that first day, of that.

_“I hope they’re right, too.”_

During the fight it comes back to her - a voice, not Liam’s, but someone begging for help, and she could not ignore it. Brightness, pain, and then, a woman - a woman before the light, a woman reaching out to her as horror crawled up behind, and she finds that hand and finds _salvation,_ finds the doors of her soul bursting open and all the pain and rage culminating in one desperate shout as she collapses, the rift closed, the demon gone, and faith brighter than any flame burning inside her like a thousand chantry candles.

Chosen. She has been chosen.

It all makes sense now, in a way.

Ruth falls to her knees, the enormity of what had been handed to her so heavy on her shoulders she could not stand.

_Why? Why me?_

Cassandra was running over to her, Solas was yelling something, and Varric, suddenly, was at her side.

“Aw, shit. Lets get you home, darlin'. That really did a number on you, didn’t it?” He is solid and real and at perfect height to pull Ruth’s arm over his shoulder, steadying her.

“Andraste,” she whispered.

“No shit.”

“No,” she said. The world was fading. Solas was trying to tip something into her mouth - a healing draught, she recognized the soapy smell of elfroot, but she pushed him away - “No,” she hissed, grabbing Varric, “Andraste. I saw her. I _saw_ her!”

And then there is nothing. She leant into it, ignoring the shouts, the shake Varric gave her shoulders. Exhaustion claimed her like an old friend, and when she saw the light burned into the lids of her eyes, it was green, but she pushed into it all the same, searching, _Andraste guide me._

_Andraste._

It was comforting, really, to have the choice taken from her. All her life, it seemed, she had been searching for a role, and now, in Andraste’s open arms, there came one she could not refuse. Not for Cassandra, brass and bone and heart, the perfect hero. Not Solas or Varric, smart and used to a life without protection. Not Leliana or Cullen, above and better suited to what _she_ had been given.

Not Liam or Mags. Mags, who would’ve done so well with this. Liam, who seemed the hero, at least - young sprig bursting with passion, that could’ve been something, _he could’ve been something-_

_Knock. Four. Times._

It had gone to her. Ruth Trevelyan, a seamstress and part time teacher nearing forty, consistently weak with magic and built in a way that could not be sustained outside a circle. She had been chosen. The space in Andraste’s arms was meant for her.

Maker preserve them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick update cuz I had it written and done - longer one forthcoming! 
> 
> Just wanna also say the writing style will change soon - Ruth is very much still in shock in this chapter and sort of floating through it all, but next chapter we're skipping ahead to sounder times and more scenes that I myself as the writer think up instead of just a narration of the game. I'm also planning on changing a few plot points - nothing huge, but enough that this story remains a surprise. The romance with Cullen, for instance, will have mostly new material coupled with edits of original scenes, altered slightly to fit where they fall. 
> 
> Remember - comments sustain me. They improve my updating speed, too - proven fact. ;-)


End file.
